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Women of Valor

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Emma Goldman - Women's Rights - Birth Control

Access to birth control was highly restricted in
turn-of-the-century America. Not only was it difficult to
obtain contraceptive devices, but the 1873 Comstock Law
prohibited the distribution even of literature about birth
control, deeming such materials "obscene."

Goldman first became convinced that birth control was
essential to women's sexual and economic freedom in the
1890s, when she worked as a nurse and midwife among poor
immigrant workers on New York's Lower East Side. There she
saw first-hand the suffering of poor women who, unable to
support the children they already had, often resorted to
dangerous, self-induced abortions. She began to take direct
action in the 1910s, smuggling contraceptive devices into the
United States, lecturing frequently on "the right of the
child not to be born" and demanding that women's
bodies be freed from the coercion of the government.

Although Margaret Sanger is often considered the pioneer of
the birth control movement, it was Goldman who brought the
young activist into the struggle. The two women parted ways
only when Sanger shifted her focus to the single, pragmatic
goal of winning the legal right to distribute birth control
information. Goldman, by contrast, believed that the law that
denied women access to birth control information was
symptomatic of general social, political and economic injustice
and always insisted that the issue be viewed as part of a
broader struggle.

At least twice, Goldman was arrested and charged with
violating the Comstock Law. She managed to turn one trial in
1916 into a national forum on birth control, successfully
attracting many writers, artists, intellectuals and
progressives to her cause. Despite the support, Goldman was
sentenced to a fine of $100 or 15 days in the workhouse. She
chose the workhouse.